I remember New Year’s Eve 1999 that I was at my parents house and right before we left for Church CNN Showed two cities with great global importance. First they showed Jerusalem and then they showed the Vatican. What a stark contrast there was between these two religious capitals. Jerusalem was very quite and calm, because it was Friday evening, and the Lord’s Sabbath had begun. While the Vatican was just the opposite. It was loud, it was seductive, it was sensual and it was devilish. Pope John Paul II had invited several rock bands to come and play live in St. Peter’s Square, marking the first Rock ‘n’ Roll concert to ever be hosted at the Vatican. Not long before this event the Vatican had installed one of the world’s largest sound systems, and on that New Year’s Eve night, they were blaring! Also two gigantic screens were erected making the performers larger than life. I remember seeing the band Aerosmith on those screens, but I think they were being broadcast live from Japan into St. Peter’s Square. Either way, the Vatican resembled anything but a Christian city; it’s true colors were viewable for all, and what I saw made me sick!

I have had several Catholic ‘friends’ accuse me of lying about this pre-millennium bash, they have a hard time believing that their ‘Holy Father’ would host such an unholy event.

It surprises me that they did not know about this Jubilee concert, as it was broadcast all over the world! But did you know that Pope John Paul’s infatuation with Rock and Roll started long before 1999. If you do research you will see that he had been defending it and attempting to use it for his own purposes since the early 1980's.

Here are some “official” reports on PAPAL ROCK.
POPE’S PLEA FOR 2000 PEACE
"Pope John Paul II has wished peace to the world, as he hailed the new millennium in an unprecedented address to St Peter's Square..... Crowds were also drawn by the first rock concert in St Peter's Square, which ended just before the Pope's address."
-- BBC NEWS: Saturday, 1 January, 2000,Pope's plea for 2000 peace

REVIEW OF JUBILEE YEAR 2000
Dumbest Idea: The decision by the Vicariate of Rome to mark New Year's Eve 1999 with a rock concert in St. Peter's Square. Why should the church have competed with sound-and-light shows in London, Paris, and New York? (A close second here: The jubilee logo, which looked like an advertisement for Disneyland.) – DENVER CATHOLIC REGISTER

MY VISIT TO ST. PETER’S SQUARE NEW YEARS EVE 2000.

“St Peter's Square was absolutely heaving, with a concert going on and two enormous video screens. When the Pope addressed the crowd, all that could be seen was a tiny figure on the far side of the square; they thoughtfully put him on the screens too. Couldn't hear a word, mind you.”
-- Plokta Millenium Issues by Colin Fine

The Pope takes a walk on the wild side...
EUROPE April 14 2000 from Richard Owen in Rome

AFTER singing with Bob Dylan and being called "funky" by Bono of U2, the Pope is to go one stage further and appear with Lou Reed, best known for his song Walk on the Wild Side.
The Vatican staged a pop concert on St Peter's Square Millennium Eve. Earlier this year, when a group of pop stars campaigning for the cancellation of Third World debt called on the Pope at his retreat at Castelgandolfo, Bono handed the pontiff his sunglasses and said that he found him "funky".
Reed once said that he used heroin, cocaine and LSD as well as amphetamines and cannabis "just to attain equilibrium . . . certain drugs don't even get you high, they just get you normal". His 1970s hit Walk on the Wild Side is about a transvestite. The ageing rocker is now said to be a reformed character, and Vatican officials said that he was leading a "decent life".
POPE JOHN PAUL II Sees Hope in Rock N' Roll

"During his Tokyo visit in 1981, the pope was entertained by a rock quartet called the Dark Ducks. Very soon the Ducks realized that they had become a quintet. The pope had picked up a microphone and was singing with them."[140] "Pope sees hope in rock 'n'roll - Chicago Tribune. Monsignor Domenico Siagalinini, a spokesman for the Eucharistic Congress said: 'The Pope's idea is to get closer to young people through pop music, which unfortunately for many years has been viewed with suspicion and indifference by the Church. The Church has to come to terms with the language of young people. We don't want to create a Catholic rock 'n' roll, but we do want to encourage a rock 'n' roll which expresses our values." The Pope invited Bob Dylan to perform at the closing Mass of Bologna's Eucharistic Congress, despite objection from Vatican critics, one of whom labeled Dylan a communist.[People Magazine, Oct. 13, 1997]
Vatican takes a walk on the wild side
Saturday, April 29, 2000 Rory Carroll in Rome

Half a century after its birth, rock is finally knockin' on heaven's door
The Vatican has announced that rock music is not diabolical on the eve of a May Day concert headlined by Pope John Paul II and the embodiment of sex, drugs and walking on the wild side, Lou Reed. Signaling detente after decades of mutual loathing, the Vatican will on Monday allow a papal Mass in Rome to mutate into a rock concert.

More than 600,000 people are expected to watch the Pope celebrate a highlight of his jubilee, or holy year, before giving way to rockers not known for Christian family values. The line-up of Reed, Alanis Morissette and the Eurythmics was agreed by the 79-year-old pontiff...
. Fernando Charrier, the bishop in charge of the Vatican's May Day celebrations, was more prosaic. "Do not be astonished. Rock is an expression of today's world, particularly dear to the young. All [forms of] human expressions, when they have dignity, command respect. I do not believe that there has ever existed a [form of] rock that is diabolical."
It will be the Pope's first brush with rock's hard edge, but he is far from a pop innocent. A dance single mixed with some of his soundbites reached the top 10 in several European countries last year.

Bob Dylan sang for him at a concert in Bologna three years ago and BB King has presented him with a guitar. The leader of the world's 1 billion Catholics was pronounced funky and presented with sunglasses by Bono of U2. The Vatican staged a pop concert with Italian performers in St Peter's square on millennium eve.

The Israeli singer Noa will sing Life is Beautiful, the theme from the Holocaust-film of the same title, after which the Pope is expected to return to the Vatican, at 2pm. The Italian bands and singers Agricantus, Bluvertigo, Carmen Consoli, Max Gazze and Irene Grandi will take the stage. As night falls it will be the turn of Morissette, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics and Lou Reed. Video clips are expected to screen greetings from Paul McCartney, Paul Simon and the family of Jimi Hendrix.

The finale will be another surprise: a rendition of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar. Since its 1971 premiere the musical has been picketed by Christian fundamentalists furious at its alleged trivialisation of the Messiah.

Pope John Paul II, the Eurythmics with Annie Lennox, Lou Reed, and Andrea Bocelli may not sound like your typical concert lineup, but that's the roster for the Great Jubilee Concert for a Debt-Free World, to be held May 1 at the Rome University.
The pope will welcome and address the young audience at the free outdoor rock concert. His speech, which will be broadcast on television worldwide, will focus on reducing debt in the world's poorest nations. Following the pope's address, Bocelli will sing a musical tribute to him.Considering the Demonic Nature of Rock and Roll, how can any Pastor of God teach the professed children of God such things? I testify onto you that they can't!BACK HOME